


The Resurrection of the Saints

by misura



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: M/M, Minor Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Micheletto returns.





	The Resurrection of the Saints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pasiphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/gifts).



> minor character death: Rufio
> 
> set directly after the S3 finale
> 
> happy Yuletide, and I hope you'll enjoy this treat!

Between a dead man and a living one, there is no contest.

Had he still been alive, Micheletto thinks he might have spared a handful of heartbeats analyzing the situation, the expression on Rufio's face as he turns to face Micheletto - there's a hint of resignation to the dip of his shoulder, a surrender even as he raises his blade, too late to meet Micheletto's.

He makes it quick, not because he knows mercy now, but because he does not know, quite, when to expect Cesare to come down the stairs, and Micheletto would be ready for him.

 

There is a moment's silence, when Cesare arrives, to witness the scene Micheletto has prepared.

"Micheletto."

"You would replace me, My Lord?" Micheletto asks.

"Never," Cesare says, and Micheletto feels something in his chest stir, as if something in there is capable of movement, yet, of doing more than pumping the blood that keeps him upright, and capable of moving, of speech and murder.

Michelette wipes his blade. "Good."

"A viper, to do a viper's work." Cesare sighs and shakes his head. "I killed another brother today."

"You still have one left, then," Micheletto says. "Two, if your sister will marry again, yes?"

"No. No more weddings, Micheletto. I lack the stomach for them."

Micheletto says nothing.

"Will you stay this time?" Cesare asks. "Must I command you, if pleading will not work?"

"You would seek to command a dead man, My Lord?"

"I would have you stay," Cesare says. "Stay, and be mine again, as before."

"You kept your soldiers from massacring the population at Forli," says Micheletto. "A death for a life. That is all, My Lord. I would not be in your debt. You preserved the life of my mama, and so I have killed for you the viper you would have taken to your bosom. Fair, yes?"

"If there is any debt between us, it is mine. Stay," Cesare repeats. "I need you."

"Would you plead with one who has no heart, My Lord?"

"I would command the one who once swore his loyalty to me," says Cesare. "If I must, if you deny me again, you leave me no choice but to hunt you down like a dog."

"Then it seems that I must stay. Like a dog," Micheletto says.

 

"See?" Lucrezia says. She appears to think that it is by Micheletto's doing that she is no longer guarded by soldiers wherever she goes, even in her own home, and like him the better for it.

Micheletto wonders if she would also think that he would not have struck at her husband, had her brother commanded it, but not so much that he asks. Even alive, he never suffered from curiosity.

For the moment, it is enough that he is here, that she looks well, that the child, too, looks well.

"He remembers you," Lucrezia says. "Don't you, little Giovanni?"

Micheletto likes children. They are easier to calm down than adults. If properly handled, a child will not ask questions. A child will not demand to know where you are taking it, or why it needs to keep quiet.

A child will trust easily, until the very moment when you slit its throat.

"You'd rather be with my brother, wouldn't you?" Lucrezia asks. "In the field."

Micheletto considers the question. He might reply that a dog's wishes matter little to its master, but he has seen the way Lucrezia looks at the others who serve her. She needs a friend, and he would prefer having her confide in him rather than risk having her find another, less suitable, less deserving of her trust.

"Your brother has an army to keep him safe," he says.

"My brother is an idiot, if he values his army higher than he values you," says Lucrezia.

"He is ambitious, yes?" Micheletto shrugs. "Armies are good for ambitious people. They are useful."

Lucrezia snorts. "Sometimes I think he would happily have me marry another again if it would get him another army, another city to call his own."

"Not happily," Micheletto says.

Lucrezia snorts again.

 

Word reaches them, every once in a while, of battles waged and victories won. Micheletto tells two chambermaids and one undercook to seek employment elsewhere, replacing them with people not yet accepting money in exchange for information.

A living man might have felt content, leading such a life.

On the day of Cesare's return to Rome, Micheletto decides to absent himself, to visit the place where he once slept and ate and considered relatively safe.

They have nearly succeeded in removing the bloodstains. The letters are gone entirely, although he can still see the shape of them in his head, faintly, like he can taste and smell the blood. A poor thing to remember Pascal by, in truth. All blood tastes and smells the same, be if from an enemy or a lover, from a lord or a commoner, a sinner or an innocent.

_I love you and I hate you, and I burn._

The stairs creak. Once, he would have reached for a blade; now, he merely waits, knowing how few there are who would know to look for him here.

"You loved him that much?" Cesare asks. He looks as if he has not yet bathed since his return.

"What is love, My Lord?" Micheletto remembers asking the question of a stable-boy, and the answer he received, holding nothing he had ever found in his heart.

"Love is what I feel for my sister," Cesare says.

"And yet you are here, with me, rather than with her," Micheletto says. "Is that love, My Lord? To seek out others, rather than the person you wish to see most of all?"

"Sometimes." Cesare steps forward, onto the loose board under which a note lay hidden once. "It depends on who this other is. There were times, many times, these past weeks, when I would have had your counsel, your wits, your company. Can things between us not be as they once were?"

"I am here, yes?" Micheletto says.

"You are here, yes, instead of by my sister's side, where I commanded you to stay until my return."

Micheletto may not know what love is, but he knows it may drive reason from a man's mind as water from a wrung cloth. "You have not yet returned, then? Is it only your image that has come to visit me? Your ghost, perhaps? Are you dead, My Lord, as he and I?"

Cesare reaches out. He stands too close, Micheletto thinks. A man with a blade might kill easily at this range, slip in the blade quick and sure - step back just in time to avoid any stains.

A boy without a blade might put his hand on a man's arm and thereby make an offer, an invitation.

"You are not dead," Cesare says. "I do not allow you to be dead. Feel the warmth of my skin. Am I not alive? And if I am, are you not alive also?"

Cesare Borgia is not a boy, though neither of his hands hold a blade. Micheletto allows himself to be pulled closer, as if he were the boy, and Cesare the one who may decide to accept or decline.

It feels strange, to be kissed as he has seen Cesare kiss his sister.

"Live," Cesare says. "For me, Micheletto. Live for me, and love me, and I will never betray you."

Death would be a betrayal, Micheletto thinks. "Yes, My Lord," he says.

There is blood in his veins and air in his lungs, and the warm weight of another body against his own, moving of its own free will. He lives, then, still, and will serve one who has need of him.


End file.
